Email Etiquette

Many users are not aware that email has its own set of rules and that violating those rules increase the probability of filtering your email not only by local corporate antispam filter but by filters in other corporations (and more and more corporation are using various spam filter to protect their user form the flood of spam). For your reference here are a typical e-mail etiquette rules (reproduced form Email Etiquette, University of Kansas):

• Don't use all capitals LIKE THIS when sending email. This is considered to be yelling.
• Include your full name and email address in the body of every message. Many email programs help you to do this with a signature file.
• Use the subject line to provide a meaningful synopsis of your message, especially if you're sending business-related email or email to a stranger.
• Take a moment to delete extra lines and text from replies and forwards.
• Don't use email to criticize other people's grammar and spelling. Email is informal and criticisms like that are called flames. Remember that everyone makes mistakes.
• Always check your own email for readability and spelling.
• Double-check the email address of the person to whom you're sending your message.

There are a lot of Internet sites devoted to "Netiquette". See Recommended Links.

Please avoid sending message without the subject line (it looks like that's how this reply subject line "Re: " was generated) or with short generic subject lines.

That violates e-mail etiquette rule "Good descriptive subject lines allow easy scanning for message content in mailboxes".

Please don't use your user ID in the subject line. This is a typical spammer trick for making email unique to avoid filtering; such mails are blocked by most spam filters...

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Here's some advice on coping with the glut of e-mail:

• Use the delete key. Often you can tell by the first sentence if the email is useful or not. If not, she can delete it or come back to it later.

• Respect the recipient's time. Keep e-mail short and to one topic because it's likely to be deleted before anyone gets to topic two or three. Resist the urge to e-mail interesting Web discoveries to others. Reply to sender, not everyone on the string. NCR's Lars Nyberg loses patience with long strings that do nothing to resolve issues. "The day I joined NCR, I made it clear that I was not interested in being routinely copied on e-mails for the sake of protocol." Intel CEO Craig Barrett doesn't hesitate to ask senders to take him off distribution lists. Many, including SeeUthere Technologies' John Chang, have a three e-mail rule. If a problem isn't solved in three e-mails, pick up the phone.

• Exploit e-mail software. Most CEOs have Microsoft Outlook and most, including BackWeb Technologies' Eli Barkat, set the software so that the first three lines can be seen in the in-box. That permits deletion or other action without taking the time to open. Others color code. Authoria's Tod Loofbourrow marks e-mail from his board of directors in red. Chang uses pink or blue for his wife. Some CEOs steer all copied e-mail to a separate folder for later under the theory that someone else is dealing with the problem. When ConAgra Foods' Bruce Rohde sends out 1,000 e-mails to employees, those who hit "reply" automatically send their e-mail to a separate folder that he reads over the weekend. At the end of the day, Chang pulls together e-mail sent on a single thread so he can read the chatter in one sitting.

• Strategize. Charles Holliday of DuPont sends e-mail to 85,000 employees at once, then has an assistant cull responses for trends. Have several e-mail accounts. That redirects junk. John Peters of Sigma Networks touches each e-mail only once, dealing with it on the spot so he doesn't waste time reading it again.

Recommended Links

Softpanorama Recommended

Top articles

Sites

• RFC 1855: Netiquette Guidelines http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/htbin/rfc/rfc1855.html -- This is a classic RFC on the subject
• Email Ettiquette (from Yale)
• Email Etiquette, University of Kansas (sited above)
• Spam Is Not the Worst of It
• Email Etiquette This article appears in The Daily Journal. Copyright 1998-2000, Kevin Lee Thomason, Esq. and The Daily Journal.
• Email etiquette rules for effective email replies

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Last modified: March 12, 2019